Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with deep regret that I inform the Senate of the death on 28 August 2006 of the Hon. Donald Leslie Chipp AO, a senator for the state of Victoria from 1978 to 1986, a member of the House of Representatives for the divisions of Higinbotham and Hotham, Victoria, from 1960 to 1968 and 1969 to 1977 respectively, and at various times in that period a federal minister.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That the Senate records its deep regret at the death, on 28 August 2006, of the Honourable Donald Leslie Chipp, AO, a former federal minister, member of the House of Representatives, founder and former Leader of the Australian Democrats, and senator for Victoria, and places on record its appreciation of his long and meritorious public service and tenders its profound sympathy to his family in their bereavement.

There will be many sincere and eloquent condolences expressed today on the passing of Don Chipp, a colourful and successful figure who was to make a great contribution to the face of Australian politics. Don Chipp was the eldest of four boys born into a working-class family from Northcote, Victoria on 21 August 1925. He was educated at Northcote High School and at 18 joined the RAAF, where he served for two years during World War II. Always a fierce competitor, after the war he was an accomplished sprinter, footballer and cricketer. He studied commerce at the University of Melbourne and went on to work as a management consultant.

Before entering federal politics, Don served as a councillor for Kew City from 1955 to 1961. During this time he was also chief executive officer of the Olympic Games civic committee and was chairman of Victoria’s first doorknock cancer appeal. Federal politics was a logical progression for a man with such a dedicated commitment to serving his community. Don entered the House of Representatives at a by-election in 1960 and became the Liberal member for the seat of Higinbotham. After a redistribution, he later became the member for the newly named seat of Hotham.

His political career was lengthy and distinguished. Though his political legacy is seen primarily through the foundation of the Australian Democrats, he also served as minister in successive Liberal governments under Prime Ministers Holt, Gorton and McMahon and the caretaker Fraser government. He was minister and spokesperson for a diverse range of issues during his significant period of service with the Liberal Party. Indeed, he served the Liberal Party longer in parliament than he served the Democrats.

In 1966 he was appointed Minister for the Navy in the Holt government. He was Minister for Customs and Excise under John Gorton in 1969, a position he held until the end of the McMahon government in 1972. It was in this capacity that he held portfolio responsibility for censorship of imported books and films, and his time as minister saw a liberalisation of such regulations, though not without significant controversy. Don was Deputy Leader of the House of Representatives from 1971 to 1972 and Leader of the House for a short time during 1972. In opposition, during the years of the Whitlam government, he was a member of the shadow ministry and was responsible for social security and welfare matters. In 1975 he served in the caretaker Fraser government as Minister for Social Security, Minister for Health and Minister for Repatriation and Compensation.

In March 1977 Don Chipp resigned from the Liberal Party with a speech to the House of Representatives highlighting his concerns with what he saw as the condition of party politics in Australia. He went on to form and lead the Australian Democrats, with that party winning 11.1 per cent of the national vote at the 1977 election only nine months later, which was a remarkable performance for a brand-new political party. Don Chipp was elected as a Democrat Senator for Victoria at that election. He served in the Senate as a representative for Victoria from 1978 until his retirement from federal parliament in 1986, after 25 years of service and almost a decade as Leader of the Australian Democrats. In 1992, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for his service to the Commonwealth parliament.

Don Chipp will be best remembered as the founder of the Australian Democrats and for leading that party to a significant degree of electoral success at what was certainly, in the mid- to late seventies, a tumultuous time in Australian politics. He believed that there was an important place for a third force in Australian politics and the establishment of the Democrats was testimony to his conviction. Until the very end, Don Chipp held strong beliefs and strong opinions concerning issues of public policy. He undoubtedly made a significant contribution to public life in Australia and he will be remembered for his compassion and steadfast dedication to the ideology that defined him.

As a Liberal senator, may I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Don Chipp’s long and distinguished service to the Liberal Party of Australia, and indeed express my own regret that our party lost the benefit of his enormous energy and passion when he left to form the Australian Democrats. On behalf of the government, I offer condolences to his wife, Idun, and his children, Debbie, John, Greg, Melissa, Juliet and Laura, and his eight grandchildren.

Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A week ago last night the founding leader of the Australian Democrats, the Hon. Don Chipp, passed away. My fellow Victorian Democrats and I were deeply saddened by Don’s death although we knew him to be frail—indeed, he had been gravely ill in hospital on occasions over the last few years.

It was a great honour to know Don and I have no hesitation whatsoever in calling him a great man. But I want to start by talking about Don, the man. He was passionate, idealistic and committed to social, environmental and economic reform. He was, as a result of that, also popular. He is widely mourned by his enormous circle of friends, family and colleagues, especially the media and the people who knew him through the media, heard him at town hall meetings or met him in the street. He was a very public man with a strong sense of public good—the common good. He was seen as refreshingly honest. I doubt he had many secrets. He shared the joys of his family life with anyone who would care to listen. He talked openly about his physical condition even though he never complained. He was charismatic, self-effacing sometimes, a joker, a sharp critic, a master at clever, usually spot-on retorts, highly intelligent and highly motivated to save the world from powerful forces of self-interest.

Former political leaders this week have called him principled—driven by very clear principles about how politics and relationships ought to be conducted. At his funeral two days ago we heard from his children what he was like as a father—terrifying, exhilarating, smelling of aftershave and cigars, but above all loving and nurturing. A man with a passion for language, clear thinking, clear expression, ideas, argument, sport and having fun. Speechmaking at family functions was routine and everyone was expected to do it.

He was a monarchist but a strong believer in democracy. He was a practising Christian but irreverent too. He believed in free enterprise and was suspicious of the welfare state, but he was also a man for the underdog, compassionate, a man of contradictions. He was indeed complex. He also had high expectations of himself and others. He planned his own funeral. Played in the cathedral were John Farnham singing Help and Zorba the Greek, slotted in alongside choristers and organists making centuries-old music. The coffin made its way out of St Paul’s to the waiting hearse to the swing of a jazz band. Something tells me he wanted us to enjoy his funeral and to leave it with a spring in our step.

Despite his disabling conditions, his daughter Laura says he danced the night away at her party just a couple of weeks ago. He never lost the fire in his belly against injustice; he was antiwar, antinuclear, anti dishonesty, anti artifice. He was pro women—with four daughters and two wives that is hardly surprising. After almost a decade and four elections he left his beloved party in the hands of a woman, Janine Haines, the first female leader of any party in the country, a leader we also said goodbye to just two years earlier.

In his confidence in women, and in so many other ways, he was a man ahead of his time. He was pushing for ethanol as an alternative to petrol before most Australians even knew what it was. He led Australia out of the dark ages of censorship. He saw nothing wrong with lovemaking or people writing about it. He was tolerant, but suspicious of wowsers. I hardly knew Don when he told me the tale of inviting a colleague into a motel room on an election campaign trail and enjoying his shock at seeing Idun, his wife, in her nightie breast-feeding one of their daughters. One of his staffers at the funeral described the Chipp entourage making its way to Canberra back and forth as the ‘Chipp circus’. The babies and the prams and the beloved german shepherd all piled into the Comcar.

A couple of years ago he told me he could not understand what all the fuss was about internal party disputes. Senators in our party, just like the others, have never got on with one another, he said. Some apparently even refused to come to party room meetings, declaring them a total waste of time. It was perfectly okay for Don for people to disagree. He approved of the conscience vote not just for euthanasia and stem cell research but for anything. He strongly believed it was the antithesis of democracy to coerce party members into voting all the same way and he saw to it that our processes allowed MPs to vote not only according to conscience but according to the evidence as they saw it or to properly represent the interests of their state.

I want to put on record some comments made by two important Democrats not able to be part of this debate. Former Senator Sid Spindler from Victoria said:

Don should be remembered less for the keeping them honest slogan, a quixotic endeavour at best, than for the substance of these and other policies he so insistently and courageously took into the public arena. Many of his priorities were ahead of that time in the eighties when he secured a bridgehead for the Australian Democrats, advocating unpopular causes like a capital gains tax, a place for women in Australian politics, drug law reform, justice for Indigenous Australians, sitting down with their leaders for three days in Alice Springs, long before the term ‘reconciliation’ was coined.

I was one of several Australia Party members who had urged him to have a go at “changing the world” and have a go he did. Later, when I worked with him on a daily basis I came to respect him for his honesty, his sincerity, his passionate belief that the impossible could be achieved. He came close to it.

Heather Jeffcoat, Acting President of the Democrats, said:

He set the audiences on fire with his passionate views. Indeed, in a letter to members in July 1977 he said: “we are going like a rocket”. He was not wrong.

Don was also a charmer, a very kind of person, genuinely interested in the welfare of everyone around him, with a deep interest in what it means to be a human being, as evidenced by his statement to members:

One of the most exhilarating and satisfying experiences a human being can have is showing tolerance to a different view and being big enough to agree to disagree with another person and still maintain a close relationship.

Don also leaves an extraordinary and enduring legacy in politics. He said:

Politics is not a profession—it is a disease. To do the ultimate good, one must be at the seat of ultimate power and the seat of power is politics.

Don served in the RAAF during World War II, studied commerce at the University of Melbourne, was the Chief Executive Officer of the Melbourne Olympics Civic Committee and was elected to the Kew Council. But Don was not a one-dimensional career politician; he was also a family man, spent time overseas and was a talented sportsperson—playing a few games for the Fitzroy football club, playing district cricket and dabbling in professional sprinting. Perhaps his greatest claim to sporting fame was as the last batsmen to partner Sir Donald Bradman in the 1963 PM’s XI against England.

Don eventually entered the House of Representatives in a by-election for the seat of Higinbotham in 1960. At that stage he was 35. It was not long before his independence of mind and attachment to principle were to show themselves. In 1961, as a backbencher, Don voted against a government bill imposing capital punishment. In 1966, in the aftermath of the Voyager-Melbourne Navy disaster which took the lives of 82 sailors, Don became Navy minister. It was during this time, as he dealt with the storm that arose from allegations about the cause of the tragic accident, that his disillusionment with the way the major parties used the parliamentary system was crystallised. Don wrote in his autobiography:

The whole Voyager story indicates how a parliamentary system can be abused ... how decisions can be made by politicians which are not in the public interest, but for expediency.

Don was made Minister for Customs and Excise in 1969 and it was during this time that he made what was probably his biggest contribution as a minister and when his credentials as a small ‘l’ liberal were most on show. Don realised the absurdity of Australia’s outdated censorship laws and he worked against formidable opposition to liberalise them—even going so far as to show movies for other members and explain why they should be made available for adult viewing. Don also cleared a big list of long-censored books when the list of banned books was itself banned. That did not stop Don. He published the secret list and, by his own account, allowed members of parliament and journalists to take home banned books of literary merit. The Little Red Schoolbook, Portnoy’s Complaint, The Marijuana Papers, The Boys in the Band and Carnal Knowledge were liberated.

After being dumped from the ministry by the Prime Minister at the time, Malcolm Fraser, and sent to the backbench in March 1977, Don resigned from the Liberal Party. Some say the Democrats owe their formation to former Prime Minister Fraser—perhaps, but I think his dissatisfaction with his own party and the opposition would have led Don to that decision in any case. He resigned over five issues: the 25 per cent cut in foreign aid; the abolition of the Australian Assistance Plan—one of the most exciting and progressive social reforms ever undertaken, according to Don; the abolition of the funeral benefits for pensions; the breach of the promise to index pensions; and the decision to devalue the currency and the refusal to lower tariffs so as to contain the inflationary effect of that move.

In his resignation speech, he criticised both the Whitlam and Fraser governments. Don said:

I wonder if the ordinary voter is not becoming sick and tired of the vested interests which unduly influence political parties and yearns for the emergence of a third political force, representing middle-of-the-road policies that would owe allegiance to no outside pressure group.

So began the coalescence of the Australian Democrats—a party based on small ‘l’ liberalism and participatory democracy, an alternative to the major parties which transformed Australian politics.

Don became leader of this new party and its public face and his personal integrity, enthusiasm and frankness generated publicity, public interest and great momentum. Don crisscrossed the country, inspiring hundreds of thousands of people. He spoke at town hall meetings overflowing with people disenchanted with the main parties, fed up with, as he said, the ‘politics of cynicism, character assassination and misleading statistics’. In Don’s words, the Australian Democrats offered:

A politics of hope, of reconciliation, of openness, of optimism. We offer a politics based on three simple virtues that have been badly battered and abused ... I speak of honesty, I speak of tolerance and I speak of compassion.

In June 1977, just a few months after Don had resigned as a Liberal MP, the Australian Democrats were formally launched and barely six months later they were fighting a federal election. Back then the Democrats campaigned on unemployment, inflation, uranium, industrial relations and social policy—some things never change. Don won a Senate seat for the Democrats in Victoria with 16.3 per cent of the vote, as did Colin Mason in New South Wales with 8.3 per cent and we went very close in other states too—Ian Gilfillan polled 11.2 per cent and Jack Evans polled 12.5 per cent in WA.

Back then, as now, people said it was a flash in the pan; the Democrats were bound to fail at the next election. Don led the party for the best part of a decade, including for four federal elections. This was the beginning of the Democrats taking the balance of power—the main minor Senate party with which governments had to negotiate the path of critical legislation. By 1981 the Democrats held the balance of power—a role we held or shared for 24 years until the coalition gained their Senate majority last year. During this time the Democrats fulfilled the vision that Don and others had for our party.

At the launch of the campaign for the federal election in December 1977, Don said:

... our first objective is to secure a Senate seat in every State. This will give us balance of power, the balance of common-sense, the balance of wisdom, the balance of reason in the Senate. We solemnly undertake to exercise that power responsibly and constructively. ... Our role will be to restore the Senate to its proper function as a House of Review and a States House—not a party political house. We will not permit a Government to steam-roll through ill-considered legislation that will adversely affect the Australian people. We will ensure that all important legislation is thoroughly discussed and clearly understood inside and outside the parliament before it is passed. We will support and strengthen Committees to consider legislation and consult with the Australian people about the legislation before it is enacted.

This he delivered and this we still deliver. We respected the parliamentary processes and enhanced the Senate’s function as a house of review. We reformed Senate practices, especially Senate procedures and the committee system. We created a more dynamic Senate which challenged legislation and added real value through its committee work. While the Democrats held the balance of power, the Senate was neither a rubber stamp nor a house of obstruction. Most importantly, we exercised our power in the Senate in a fair and even-handed manner.

Don saw that Australian politics needed a third force and he created the Australian Democrats to fulfil that role. While Don may be gone, the need for a third force is not. With the government having the majority in the Senate, the Senate’s ability to act as a house of review has been largely dismantled as the government of the day has rushed to give itself more power and less accountability. The Democrats have always looked to hold the government of the day to its promises and negotiate between the government and the opposition. Don’s approach of seeking consensus and compromise more than conquest and political point scoring meant that he was able to obtain legislative concessions from successive governments, both Liberal and Labor—concessions that made legislation fairer for the disadvantaged as well as for ordinary Australians. This was a precedent continued by those who followed in Don’s footsteps and perhaps now even more than ever there is a need for the Democrats to play this role.

While many will see the party that Don founded as his legacy, we must not forget the issues and causes he championed with relentless passion. In many ways, as I said, Don was a politician ahead of his time. He was an early advocate for environmental causes and justice for Indigenous Australians. He was opposed to nuclear arms and uranium mining and played a central, if not leading, role in the saving of the Franklin River from being dammed.

Don never really retired and he never lost his enthusiasm or commitment to public service, even after leaving parliament in 1986. He had an active career as a media commentator, was a pro-monarchist delegate at the Constitutional Convention and stood for election as Melbourne’s lord mayor in 2001. Most recently with his wife he made a documentary about the devastation caused by landmines in Vietnam and Cambodia. Don has been quoted as saying that, ‘All I want to be remembered for by my wife, my kids, my loved ones, is that he was a good old honest bastard who gave it his best shot.’ He will be remembered for that and much more.

I take this opportunity to pass on our condolences to the family of Don Chipp: to his wife, Idun, to his six children—Debbie, John, Greg, Melissa, Juliet and Laura—and to other family members on what is a very great loss for them and for us. It is also a great loss for Australian politics and for the Australian people. We celebrate Don’s achievements and we mourn his passing.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the opposition I would like to support the condolence motion moved by Senator Minchin following the death last week of the Hon. Don Chipp. I would like to convey to his family the sincere condolences of all Labor senators and note his outstanding contribution to public life. It is certainly the case that Don Chipp’s passing is the subject of quite sincere and widespread regret in the Australian community. He made a profound, distinctive and enduring contribution to political life in this country through his service as a local councillor, a member of the House of Representatives, a senator and a minister. He is one of only 43 parliamentarians who, since Federation, have served in both houses of the federal parliament. Of course it is for his time in the Senate and his role as founding leader of the Australian Democrats that Don Chipp will most likely be remembered. He was a skilled political operator and a man noted for his idealism and determination, which he displayed throughout his public life.

Don Chipp was born in Melbourne in 1925 and grew up in a working-class family in the suburb of Northcote. I understand that his dad was a staunch Labor man and his mother a secret Liberal voter. I can understand why you would keep that secret! This was no doubt a fitting background for a man who founded a political party aimed at occupying the centre between the two major political forces in this country. He left school at 15 and worked as a clerk at the State Electricity Commission and studied part time for a degree in commerce at the University of Melbourne. In 1943, at the age of 18, he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force and served as an aircrew member until his discharge in September 1945.

Don was a keen sportsman—a cricketer, footballer and runner. In the early 1950s he became registrar of the Australian Institute of Accountants and the Australian Society of Accountants. In 1955 he became chief executive officer of the Olympic Civic Committee of the Melbourne City Council, with responsibility for organising accommodation for visitors to the 1956 Melbourne Games. It was also in that year that he was elected a councillor of the City of Kew, a position he held until 1961. In the late 1950s he was director of the Victorian Promotion Committee and in 1958 he was chairman of the first Cancer Doorknock Appeal.

Don Chipp was elected to parliament in 1960 at a by-election for the Victorian seat of Higinbotham following the death of Frank Timson, who had held that seat since 1949. Don was subsequently re-elected on three occasions and, following an electoral redistribution, won the seat of Hotham in 1969—a seat which he held until his retirement from the House in 1977.

His ministerial career began in 1966 when he became Minister for the Navy in the Holt government. He went on to serve as Minister for Tourist Activities, Minister for Customs and Excise and Minister Assisting the Minister for National Development. In 1971 he became Deputy Leader of the House and, in the last days of the McMahon government, took over the role of Leader of the House from Sir Reg Schwartz, who was also remembered by the Senate with a condolence motion earlier this year.

As Navy minister, Don Chipp had to manage the aftermath of the Voyager naval disaster of two years earlier, setting up the second royal commission into the incident when new allegations surfaced following an earlier inconclusive royal commission.

He was excluded from the first Gorton ministry as he was not thought to be a backer of the new Prime Minister. However, late in 1969 Gorton appointed him Minister for Customs and Excise.

Don Chipp was committed to the small ‘l’ liberal tradition in the Liberal Party and, in the spirit of the late 1960s, was the minister responsible for freeing up Australia’s antiquated censorship laws. When he became minister even the list of banned books was banned. Speaking on the ABC’s Denton program in 2004, he noted that at one point even the Noddy books were banned. But Chipp was a strong believer that adults should have the right to decide such matters for themselves. Press coverage from the period noted that he met with fierce resistance from what was described as the extreme right wing of the Liberal Party.

He was a supporter of multiculturalism, drawing fire from a range of sources in 1972 when he said:

I’d like to see a more tolerant nation so that we can receive ideas and cultures and even people from overseas. I would like to see a stage in the 1980s where Australia is becoming the only true multi-racial country. That is the Liberal Party aim, which is quite often misunderstood.

Don Chipp was also very concerned for the status of Indigenous Australians. In his first speech in 1961 he argued the need for economic development in northern Australia, and in his first speech to the Senate, in 1977, he addressed the dispute between the people of Aurukun and Mornington Island, and the Queensland government. He spoke of his experience, as part of the 1963 joint select committee investigating the grievances of Aboriginal people on the Gove Peninsula. He said on that occasion:

We as members of the Labor Party, the Country Party and the Liberal Party presented to the government what I thought was a wonderful report. Then there was an election and that report has been gathering dust ever since. Its recommendations were never implemented. When I go to Gove today I do not see a happy people living in harmony with nature. I see lots of alcohol. I see many of the white people’s scourges, which have virtually decimated that beautiful race of people.

He went on to say:

I plead with the minister from this seat in the Senate to find time to see these people, to talk about their problems and to learn first hand of the massive problems that they have. If no further action is contemplated by this federal parliament, the decimation of a race of people is not impossible.

This reflected his very deep commitment to Indigenous people in this country.

During the period of the Whitlam government, Don Chipp served as a shadow minister and the Liberal spokesperson on international trade and tariffs and, later, social security and welfare. For a short time in late 1975, during the Fraser caretaker period, he was simultaneously Minister for Health, Minister for Social Security and Minister for Repatriation and Compensation.

He expected, I think, to continue in those ministries after the 1975 election but was not chosen by then Prime Minister Fraser. He was understood to have had a frosty relationship with Malcolm Fraser and that apparently led to his omission from cabinet. But his status as a backbencher allowed him more freedom to take an independent stand, speaking out against government policy with which he disagreed.

His backbench status prompted him to look beyond the Liberal Party, an organisation with which he had experienced frustration for some time. In a notable speech to the House of Representatives in March 1977 he explained his resignation from the Liberal Party. He noted his public comments of opposition to the Fraser government’s actions of cutting overseas aid, abolishing the Australian Assistance Plan, proposing to abolish financial benefits for pensioners, failing to honour a promise to index pensions and deciding to devalue the currency without lowering tariffs.

His resignation speech was highly critical of both major parties and he suggested that it may be time for ‘the emergence of a third political force’. It is certainly true that the political and economic turmoil of the 1970s had led to widespread public dissatisfaction with politics. The newly formed Australian Democrats, with Chipp as leader, looked to capitalise on that disaffection and gather support by presenting themselves as a new style of political movement.

Chipp is reported as having hoped that other Liberal members would break away and join him, a scenario which failed to eventuate. Nonetheless, his experience and charismatic leadership was vital to the young party and he energised the Democrats’ national campaign and drummed up significant public interest. He was certainly highly effective in capturing the support of many people who sought an alternative to the major parties. Polls taken at the time of the federal election later in 1977 indicated that Chipp enjoyed a higher level of personal popularity than either Gough Whitlam or the Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser.

Under his leadership the party recorded a significant vote at the 1977 election—more than 11 per cent nationally. They can only dream of such results now. At that election they gained two Senate seats, Chipp’s being one of them. He defined his party’s role as seeking a middle ground in policy and what I think we could fairly call ‘the accountability of government.’ Those roles could be summed up by his ubiquitous phrase: ‘Keep the bastards honest.’

The election of 1980 saw three new Democrats elected to the Senate, among them the late Janine Haines, who had sat briefly in the Senate after her appointment by the parliament of South Australia to replace the Liberal Movement’s Steele Hall.

Don Chipp entered the Senate at a time when the Fraser government held a majority in this chamber. His party winning an additional three seats in 1980 contributed to the loss of that majority. From 1981 until July last year the Democrats, either alone or in combination with other minor parties and Independents, held the balance of power between the major parties in this chamber. Under Chipp’s leadership, and after his retirement, the party he founded was very successful in getting senators elected to this chamber and played an important role in the development of the Senate’s role as a strong check on government.

During his time in the Senate, Don Chipp served as the Democrats spokesperson in a range of portfolios and took an active interest in many policy issues. He was particularly passionate on the nuclear issue and also came to express deep regret at the role he played as Minister for the Navy during the time of the Vietnam War.

Among the personal characteristics that Chipp may be remembered for were his idealism, his willingness to debate ideas and his capacity to accept different arguments. His movement through the Liberal Party, the ministry, the backbench and then to the Democrats represents a significant political and personal journey.

He was always a passionate and persuasive advocate for his beliefs; he continued to speak out right up to the time of his retirement and post his retirement from the Senate. In the year of his retirement, 1986, he joked that he had missed his best chance when he was Holt’s Minister for the Navy and acting minister for the Army and Air Force, saying:

I often contemplate the glorious opportunity I missed, as ministerial head of the three services, of staging a bloodless coup in this country without having to do it the hard way of forming a third political party.

In retirement he continued to be an active and outspoken public figure and play a leadership role in his party. Perhaps not surprisingly for a man who said, ‘Politics is not a profession—it’s a disease,’ he ran for election as Lord Mayor of Melbourne in 2001. I hope I have better things to do in my retirement!

In an address to the Democrats National Conference in 2003 he continued to berate both the Labor and Liberal parties, to argue for his beliefs and to insist on the primacy of the parliament over the executive. He noted his pride in the important role he had played in the preservation of the Franklin River and in tax reform measures in the 1980s. As senators are aware, in the final years of his life Don Chipp developed Parkinson’s disease. Appearing on ABC TV in 2004 with his wife, Idun, he said that he wanted people with the disease to know that they could still lead ‘a valuable, happy life’. Don Chipp passed away last week on 28 August, a week after his 81st birthday. A state funeral was held for him at St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne on Saturday.

On behalf of all Labor senators I would like to recognise the very significant contribution he made to this country through his long public service, and particularly through his service to the Senate. His was a vibrant and interesting life and a very important contribution to parliamentary democracy in this country. He will be long remembered as a character in an age when blandness is encouraged and characters are no longer highly regarded. I think he will be remembered as a very significant figure and one, as I say, who brought a great deal of character to Australian political life. I would like to extend our thoughts to our colleagues from the Australian Democrats, for whom I know his passing is a great loss, but most particularly I would like to offer our profound condolences to his wife and family at this time.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too would like to join the condolence motion supported by all sides of the parliament and express my sympathy, on behalf of my National Party colleagues, to his former team mates in the Democrats and to the wife and family that he has left. When I came into this parliament in 1988 I sat almost next to Don Chipp and we became quite friendly. I sat there probably until he left. I am not sure whether it was in this house, now that I reflect on it, or in the old house, but I certainly sat one removed from him.

He was one of the characters in parliament. He was one of the men who had a vision. He was a man who not only had a vision but carried that vision into a reality to form another political party, which had great sway in the politics of Australia. He had the balance of power in the Senate and he developed a party that did have a fair bit of clout when he was leader, and when he handed it over to Senator Janine Haines it was still at its top. The party stayed marginally to the right of centre and it had some relevance in the political spectrum of Australia.

Don Chipp had a very full life as a member of a RAAF aircrew, a councillor and a CEO in the Olympic Games. He also ran a doorknock appeal and had a lot of involvement in volunteerism, in putting other people first. He became a backbencher in 1977 and then left the Liberal Party to form the Democrats. One of his ministerial highlights—I suppose it was a lowlight—was when he was Minister for the Navy during the Voyager collision, and he was instrumental in setting up the royal commission. We have heard about his views on censorship, and he abolished some of the censorship regulations and rules and allowed books to go on the market.

I knew him as a decent fellow, a fellow I sat next to, a fellow that you could have a yarn or a joke with and a person we could approach—and we did approach Don Chipp on a number of occasions to see if we could get his support on various issues. One was the maturation of rum, as I recall. The Treasury decided at the time that they would remove the maturation process on rum, and I approached him and he supported us in Queensland. I would like to take this opportunity to wish his wife, whom I knew—I did not know his family, but I recall they were a younger family—support and condolences from the National Party and say to her that he was a good honest bastard, and that is how he wanted to be remembered.

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It probably would not please Don Chipp, but I will start my speech on this condolence motion by giving a quote from Malcolm Fraser, who described the service on Sunday as ‘a great send-off’ and remarked that Don Chipp led a very productive life. I think he is right on both counts. It was a great send-off. It was one that Don Chipp had a hand in designing and perhaps it is therefore no surprise that it was a marvellous occasion, filled with grief, of course, but also filled with great insight and recognition of an amazing life. I would like to put on record my appreciation to both Mr Fraser and former Prime Minister Keating for making the effort to go along.

I also put up front my condolences to Don’s family: his wife, Idun; his first wife, Monica; all of his children; and his brother, Alan Chipp, who gave a wonderful speech at the service. As the last remaining of four brothers brought up in Northcote in Melbourne in the twenties and thirties, it would be a difficult time for him as well. The key message that came forth from Don Chipp’s life—and it was so appropriate that it was reflected in the state service in the cathedral in Melbourne on Saturday—was the message of love. Not surprisingly, that came forth in the contributions from all of his children. Each in their own way spoke of their memories, their feelings and their impressions of Don Chipp the man, the father and the great Australian. His children, Melissa, Debbie, John and Greg, gave different contributions, but each had the theme of love running through them.

I will always remember his two youngest daughters, Juliet and Laura, reading in tandem chapter 13 from the first letter to the Corinthians—a reading that is normally used at weddings rather than funerals. They read in duet style and then read the final words together: ‘Faith, hope and love remain, but the greatest of these is love.’ Throughout all of that was the enormous pride that they all felt. As was pointed out in the homily—which was also excellent, I might say—you cannot actually experience grief without love. Perhaps some might see that as the downside of love, but it is also an example of the power of it, the importance of it and the key part in the role it plays. The pride that shone forth from all of the Chipp family during the service could not fail to make an impression on everybody who was there. It was not just from a family and their private experiences, it was because of the enormous contributions that Don Chipp made in so many ways throughout his life.

Not surprisingly, we are focusing here on his contribution in the parliament and to parliamentary life. As Senator Minchin pointed out, Don Chipp spent longer in the Liberal Party than in the Democrats—indeed, almost twice as long. He made significant contributions to the Liberal Party, but there is no doubt that he will be remembered first and foremost for his role as a Democrat, in the Democrats and as a tireless promoter of the Democrat vision. Don Chipp was essential in setting up and founding the Democrats, but, as he acknowledged himself, there were many thousands of men and women from all ranks of society and all parts of the community who over the years contributed to not only building up the Democrats as a political party but building up and promoting that vision.

It is an appropriate time to also acknowledge the legacy of those who came before, from parties such as the Australia Party, the Liberal Movement, other parties from that time and groupings of people. Don Chipp’s great gift and ability was to be able to bring people together and provide a figurehead, but he also had the passion to fire people up to do what is an incredibly difficult thing to do: establish a successful third party in one of the more rigid two-party systems in global politics. It is an amazing achievement—one that very few people have successfully done—to successfully set up a minor party in Australian politics. It was not, despite the way it was sometimes painted, a breakaway or a splinter from a major party; it was a party in its own right, pulled together from the community. The fact that Don Chipp came from the Liberal Party to be a key catalyst in setting up the Democrats was sometimes used as a way to mistakenly portray the Democrats as a breakaway party rather than a genuine party generated from the community.

It is no secret, of course, that Don Chipp was quite ill in his final years. Indeed, he made sure that it was not a secret. As with almost everything, he was quite open about his ill health, feelings, views and experiences, but, above all else, his determination not to let his physical ailments hold him back. Certainly, the thought that sprung to mind when I heard that he had finally succumbed a week ago was that it was hard to believe that such an amazing spark and passion for life could be put out. But, as has been pointed out, that spark has not been put out; it has been passed on to thousands and thousands of other people. I note the comments from the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Beazley—comments for which I thank him—about the ability of the Democrats to draw strength from people like Don Chipp in the same way that the Labor Party draw strength from their icons—people like Ben Chifley or John Curtin—even though they may never have met them. He is right: the Democrats are able to and do draw similar strength and sustenance from the life, the example and the passion of Don Chipp, and we will continue to do so. But it is not just the Democrats who have the opportunity to draw on that strength and that passion; frankly, it is for any Australian who wants to take the opportunity to do so.

The key thing that was distinctive about Don Chipp and his ethos was what he consistently wanted injected into the Democrats: democracy, first and foremost. It was about calling on people of all ages and all backgrounds to get involved and to be passionate and concerned about their country, their environment, their world, their future and their children’s future. It was not just a political party for people to have tribal loyalties to like a football team, where you cheer your team on rather than the other team—although that was part of it because that is what any party does. It was more than that and that was the great dream and the great vision that I believe makes the Democrats different. It is not about a particular group of policies on their own; it is about, as the name suggests, democracy—and democracy in its truest sense which is encouraging people, whatever their views, to just get involved. To borrow another election slogan—perhaps not as well known as ‘Keep the bastards honest’—just ‘give a damn’.

In the lead-up to the start of the service when people were sitting in the cathedral, pictures were shown of Don’s life and various portrayals of his different roles in different situations. It ended with the video vision, which I have seen in a few news bulletins in the last week, of a passionate speech by him from, I think, the 1984 election, when he called on all men and women of goodwill to realise that they can change the world. That probably sounds naive these days, but Don Chipp was not scared to sound naive. He was interested in doing what was right rather than being concerned about what was perceived to be naive. As his brother Alan said at the service on the weekend, he had the courage to dare to do right and to risk unpopularity regardless. To quote his words: ‘The legacy Don Chipp leaves for each of us is to be honest to yourself and others, to listen to hurt, to be compassionate, to look to solve problems by consensus rather than contest, by cooperation rather than conflict.’ Again, that may seem naive to some, but it is a core value and a starting point in trying to determine the best way forward, whether it is in regard to a piece of legislation being negotiated in the Senate, or in regard to the way forward for the planet and the people on it, where we face some difficult challenges.

One of the few things I did find unfortunate amongst some very wonderful and generous tributes from so many people in the Australian community over the last week was in regard to a few pieces in the mainstream media, from so-called political analysts. They continue to revisit the very tired, shallow and, frankly, false debate about whether the Democrats shifted to the Left after Don Chipp left—whether the party should have been in the Centre, the Right or the Left; whether we should have moved up, down, sideways or around and around. All of that missed the point. Perhaps those easy pigeon holes suit the lazy journalist, but they missed the point about what was different about the Democrats and they missed the point about Don Chipp.

Not surprisingly, I spent a lot of the last week rereading some of his books, reading some of his speeches from the Senate on various issues and other speeches he gave, rereading his resignation speech from the Liberal Party in 1977 and rereading what he said in his final speech to the Democrats national conference in May this year. After going through all of those, it appeared to me that Don Chipp was a lot more left-wing on most issues than I am. Commentators missed the point by trying that shallow approach of pigeon-holing people into a particular place. How ridiculous to try and pin down a person like Don Chipp and say that he was Centre Left or that he moved to the Right or any of these things! To try and reduce the amazing diversity of democracy to a singular point on a two-dimensional line is ridiculous. It was that diversity, the love of the complexity and the endless dynamism of life, that I think Don Chipp personified. Who would want it any other way? Who would not want the complexity of life with its contradictions and its imperfections? It is little short of intellectual dishonesty to keep trying to reduce that amazing diversity to a shallow analysis. It is a shame that that is all we get served up sometimes from the so-called commentators. The core principle for Don Chipp was democracy and that is why the name of the party is so appropriate.

Another comment of Don Chipp’s was reported reasonably widely in the last week, perhaps because it was so apt. While the slogan ‘Keep the bastards honest’ will unavoidably be an instant point of recollection for many people, he said himself that he got that promise wrong, not only because he failed to keep the bastards honest but because it misrepresented who the bastards were. The slogan tapped into the natural human reaction to assume that politicians are a pack of bastards—and there are a lot of reasons to assume that is right across the political spectrum.

But, as he said, the real bastards were those who just reacted to the problem with another beer, tossing out the comment, ‘She’ll be right, mate’—the people who did not care, the people who were prepared to just let it all happen and not have any concern or compassion or interest in their fellow humans, in the ones who were struggling and in those who were less well-off. The real bastards had no interest in trying to understand the other person’s point of view. They did not have any interest in or ability to perceive the hurt that people feel or the difficulties that other people have. It does not mean that you will always end up just agreeing with everyone else but that people who are not even prepared to bother being concerned with their fellow humans are the real bastards.

He would often say that there are many men and women of goodwill across all political parties. Every single time I saw him give a speech—and I did see a number over the years, although not as many as I would have liked—one of the things he mentioned every time I think was how distressing he found it to witness genuinely good men and women in political parties voting for laws and policies that they believed in their hearts were wrong, bad and damaging, and how wrong it is that our political system forces them to do that. It is not so much a reflection or an attack on the people in the major political parties for doing that; it is a reflection on our system that forces them to do that. It is a reflection on the fact that this practice is a major attack on a core aspect of democracy itself. I would like to think that we could take the opportunity, in reflecting on the life and achievements of Don Chipp and in considering the nature and health of our democracy at the moment, to reconsider whether we should change our approach in Australia towards such rigid party discipline and such an absurd insistence on forcing people to vote for things that they believe in their own hearts are wrong.

We all see in this place the really positive response from the general community when they know that politicians are saying what they genuinely believe. We saw that in the RU486 debate. It was not so much whether they agreed with what people had said; it was the fact that they at least knew that this time politicians were saying what they genuinely thought and that they thought enough about an issue to have some knowledge of what they were talking about. We need more democracy in our democracy.

So I make that point by way of re-emphasising that this is a legacy available for everybody. Of course the Democrats will draw strength from Don Chipp’s contribution but it is something that everybody can draw strength from. He was not just a successful politician in the technical sense of getting a lot of votes or being around for 25 years or being able to be a minister or getting lots of things on his resume or even getting an Order of Australia. All of those are things to be proud of, but he was not just successful in that more narrow sense of the word. He was successful in the much wider sense of the word, in clearly leaving the world a better place and making a very significant and positive difference in the political process. As was obvious from the service on Saturday, he received wide respect from across the political spectrum. That category of successful politician, I would suggest, is a much smaller group, sadly, and it is something for us all to aspire to.

The role that Don Chipp and the Democrats played at the time in significant policy and legislative reforms should not be forgotten. I had the good fortune to bump into former Prime Minister Keating in the airport lounge on the way out of Melbourne after the service. He spoke incredibly affectionately and very positively of the professionalism of Don Chipp, the fact that you could trust his word and that he would stick to an agreement not just because he was a man of his word but because he had sufficient courage not to get cold feet when the going got tough. There is no doubt that some of the things that the Democrats supported in those days, such as the implementation of the capital gains tax and the fringe benefits tax, would have lost us votes at the time. That is beyond dispute. But it is also beyond dispute 20 years on that they were undoubtedly the right things to do. Even the modifications that the Democrats forced on the government of the day and on the then Treasurer, Mr Keating, to exempt the family home, for example, were also clearly the right decisions.

I would like to give one example, and it is a random example. It is a comment that I received from Lisa, a member of the public writing in response to some of the tributes to Don Chipp. She spoke of her experience of Don Chipp, who first inspired her as a young 18-year-old to enrol to vote, and of receiving a handwritten letter from him 20 years ago. This was the small gesture that at 18 sparked her lifelong passion for politics. She believed that, if a leader of a political party would listen to her, she really could make a difference. I do not know whether that person is still a Democrat voter or not—there is quite a reasonable statistical probability that she is not—but the key point is not who she votes for but that she still gives a damn and has passion. I know there would be thousands of other people like Lisa, who have that passion and the extra spark and who will be just that bit stronger because of Don Chipp.

I think the appropriate point to end on is to remind people not just to look back and think that that was a life well lived and we now move on, but to recognise that there is so much from that life that we can draw on. It was clear from the service on Saturday that so much of Don Chipp will live on in his children and his family. There are many other people, of course, for whom he has made a difference. The one key thing I guess that he would urge them to do is not to be one of the bastards who do not give a damn but to take hold of that passion, wherever it might take them, and to care about their fellow human beings and the environment.

I have to note that Don Chipp was one of the strongest advocates in the parliament for caring more about and showing more compassion towards animals. I want to pass that on because I received specific comments from people involved in the animal welfare movement recognising and wanting to acknowledge the role of Don Chipp in that area and in trying to ensure that compassion, concern and appreciation of suffering be applied as widely as possible. If that is something that anybody wants to take from Don Chipp’s life then I think it is a pretty good thing for them to do. The main thing is to show concern, be intellectually honest and remember that core message of love. If you do that, you will make a difference for the better, wherever you might go and whatever you might do.

Grant Chapman (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I speak in support of this condolence motion as the only current senator to have served with Don Chipp while he was a member of the parliamentary Liberal Party, during the first year or so of the Fraser government when we were both members of the House of Representatives.

It is a fond memory of mine that Don Chipp—as the Minister for Social Security and with responsibility for a couple of other portfolios in the caretaker government established under Malcolm Fraser between the dismissal of the Whitlam government on 11 November 1975 and the resulting federal election on 13 December 1975—was one of three caretaker cabinet ministers, along with Bill Snedden and Andrew Peacock, who came to support my election campaign in the southern suburbs seat of Kingston. The highlight of each minister’s visit was a public rally in the evening. In the case of Don Chipp, there was an open-air rally on the Morphett Vale Oval where about 1,000 people gathered, not to maintain their rage—as Mr Whitlam had pleaded following his dismissal—but to express their rage at the devastating impact of the mismanagement of the Whitlam government on the southern suburbs and to show their support for the election of a Liberal government.

Our stage for this open-air rally was the back of a truck, and Don was as much at home speaking from there to the gathered throng as he was at a more erudite gathering. Don’s passion, commitment and sense of humour were as much in evidence on that night as on many other occasions. The crowd warmed to his message and responded with enthusiasm. A few days later they responded with similar enthusiasm at the ballot box, delivering a 12 per cent electorate-wide swing in Kingston to defeat the sitting Labor member and elect me. There were swings as high as 20 per cent in some of those southern suburbs in which Don Chipp campaigned.

Sadly—and, I believe, in an error of political judgement—Don Chipp was excluded from the post-1975 election Fraser ministry. It was no secret, and I think it has been alluded to in earlier remarks, that the two did not get on. How different history might have been had this not been the case. It is unlikely that the Australian Democrats would ever have got off the ground. It would seem that Mr Chipp’s legacy will long outlive the Democrats. Don Chipp was arguably the nation’s most popular politician and one of Australia’s most liked public figures.

With the passing of time, our political paths diverged. He left the Liberal Party in March 1977 to become an Independent MP and subsequently, in May 1977, established the Australian Democrats. He then retired from the House of Representatives to stand successfully for the Senate at the December 1977 federal election, taking his seat in the Senate in July 1978. Meanwhile, I departed the House of Representatives in 1983 and by the time I returned as a senator in 1987 Don Chipp had retired. Nonetheless, we continued to interact through our common love of sport.

Don was a passionate and committed sportsman. While I recall him primarily as an enthusiastic and tough cricketer, his sporting prowess was wide and varied. After playing Australian Rules football for Heidelberg in the Victorian Football Association, he played briefly in the higher grade Victorian Football League with the Fitzroy Football Club, for whom he played three games in 1947, kicking one goal. He was also a finalist in the Stawell Gift, losing his heat by a whisker to the eventual winner of the Stawell Gift. He also won a senior position administering the 1956 Olympic Games. I am told that a visit to a travelling boxing tent in Benalla gave him the chance to fight, and win, a bout against an old pro.

Don Chipp will also always hold a place in history as the last batsman to partner Sir Donald Bradman. It was in February 1963, just up the road here in Canberra at Manuka Oval, and Sir Robert Menzies had coaxed the Don out of retirement to play in the Prime Minister’s XI against England. Then test greats, including Richie Benaud and Neil Harvey, comprised the PM’s team—and, unlike today, it also always included a couple of MPs. As a reasonably competent cricket player Mr Chipp found himself batting No. 4. That game saw Don Chipp recorded as being the non-striker when Don Bradman, aged 54, was dismissed for the last time—for four runs.

As I said, it was our mutual love of cricket that kept us associated after Don Chipp left the Liberal Party, because in the latter half of the 1970s Mr Chipp convened and captained the parliamentary cricket team in its several games against the press, the parliamentary staff and several other teams, including in latter years the Melbourne Crusaders. In later years I inherited the role. It was easier to get a team together in those days with parliament not sitting on Mondays. Don Chipp was vigorous and competitive, a hard man on the cricket field. When he captained parliament against the press gallery he sledged as ferociously as he played, though it must be said he sledged his own team mates as much as he did his opponents.

I do not doubt that Don Chipp’s qualities of passion, single-mindedness and the killer instinct aided both his sporting and political success. They are reflected in his commitment to the causes in which he believed. I offer my condolences to his widow, Idun, and to his family.

Natasha Stott Despoja (SA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support this condolence motion on the death of the founder of our party, Don Chipp. I was privileged to speak at Don’s state funeral on Saturday in Melbourne. I thank Don and his family for that great honour. In fact, for those who attended—and you have heard from my colleagues—it was a mix of ordinary Australians, people who had never met Don Chipp; his political colleagues, both friends and foes alike; many Democrats; Liberal Movement and Australia Party members; and former prime ministers. It was an extraordinary gathering but it was also a beautiful celebration.

The music reflected Don’s whims and his tastes, whether it was Zorba the Greek, Help sung by John Farnham or jazz. We all walked out of St Pauls to the sounds of a jazz band. It was full of happy memories and images, from videos of Don, as my colleague Senator Bartlett has remarked, to photographs profiling his political and personal life. The eulogies and the speeches by his family were not only a testament to what an extraordinary, wonderful and passionate man Don was but also an absolute, glowing tribute to his talented, articulate, caring and loving family. The speeches by Debbie, Melissa, Greg and John, his children; the readings by Juliet and Laura, his younger daughters; and the speech by his last surviving brother, Alan, were all funny, interesting, clever and passionate, much like the man himself. It was an honour, along with Andrew Denton, to give tributes at that event. I probably risk doubling up on some of my comments at that event here today. I also want to thank John and Christine for the beautiful wake hosted at their house after the state funeral. It was extraordinary hospitality—happy and loving grieving but beautiful people. Again, it was very much a tribute to Don’s passion for and love of family. Family was big for Don, and I am so glad that he met my son, Conrad.

Don Chipp knew exactly what the odds were against him and his party. He pitched himself against two-party dominance and he hoped that voters would see the advantage—and they did. His disillusionment with the major parties and his fervent desire for ordinary men and women to have a say led to the formation of the Australian Democrats on 9 May 1977. His vision, as you have heard from many speakers here, was for a party that stood for hope, optimism, reconciliation, honesty, tolerance and compassion, very much reflecting Don himself. He saw the party—and I paraphrase Don—as a credible alternative to cynicism, character assassination, misleading statistics, name-calling, pork-barrelling, union-bashing, dirty tricks, secrecy and despair. I think he covered the lot.

We were born of some strange bedfellows and I think Senator Bartlett in his speech today made it very clear that this was not simply a breakaway—not at all. This was a grassroots, participatory, democratic movement founded by this man and born of strange bedfellows: the Liberal Movement and Australia Party members, many of whom were in the church on Saturday. As I commented in the eulogy, the first ballot was for the name of the party. It was typical of Don, this focus on participatory democratic politics. Everything had to be balloted, and still is occasionally. The first ballot was for the name. Don and others swear that there was a 7,000-strong membership at that time, and why would we doubt him? The choices were, I think, 56 alternatives to the Australian Democrats. One was the Beacon on the Hill Party and the other was the Civic Sanity Party. I suspect we got really close to those ones! Australian Democrats it was—a wise choice. The media’s preferred terminology or nomenclature for the Democrats over the years, and particularly at that time, seemed to focus on Chippocrats and Don’s Party, which, as I have said before and on Saturday, while catchy, sound a little like an all-male strip review. Don and I thought maybe that explained Reverend Fred Nile’s vocal opposition to the founding of this new party. But the Australian Democrats it was.

At the 1997 election, armed with I think $44,000 in campaign funds, a four-page policy document and the claim to be a credible alternative to the major parties, Don Chipp and his colleagues stood for election. As you have heard, Colin Mason in New South Wales and Don Chipp were elected on that occasion. It was pretty irresistible, I suspect, but within our first year, the Democrats were polling double figures in state and federal elections.

The first actual policy ballot was on the environment. It was an anti-uranium platform. Again, I support the words of my colleague Senator Bartlett in saying that this whole Right-Left dichotomy is so difficult to apply to the Democrats, not just throughout our existence but at the formation, because Don was a radical and proud environmentalist. He loved, cared for and sought to protect, both legislatively and through his other activities and public work, our wonderful natural heritage. Norm Sanders and he will forever be remembered for the campaign to save the Franklin in the 1980s. After the logging of the Daintree, he went on television and said, ‘Those mindless bloody vandals.’ He was an activist as well as a legislator and he was ahead of his time when it came to environmental issues. Environmental sustainability has been a core of our party ever since, along with human rights, accountability, democracy and all those other things that Don was passionate about. At the 1980 federal election, he asked:

When you decide on a party you support you are not really thinking about yourself, are you? Subconsciously, you are in fact thinking about your children and your grandchildren. You know that somehow or other that you and I will survive the eighties but what kind of Australia are we going to present to our kids at the end of the decade?

That is one of my favourite quotes; I know I have used it a lot. It sums up a notion that these days, I suppose, we refer to as ‘intergenerational equity’. Don looked beyond electoral cycles. He was focused on the future. He cared about the environment. He loved family. I think that quote is a really important one for the Democrats to reflect on. Do we think that the period of time in Australian politics had it been without the Democrats would have been a better world? Is there a better Australian political climate as a consequence of the Democrats having been formed and the work we have done? You bet.

Don’s vision inspired many new activists, politicians, supporters, voters and, indeed, members of parliament. I have said previously that we all wanted to be ‘chips off the old block’ in trying to encompass or perhaps even reconcile that strong belief in small ‘l’ liberal principles—the civil libertarian perspective—with some really progressive, radical notions. On the party’s anti-uranium stance, even at our national conference this year, at which Don Chipp spoke, Don said his aim for the party was to be ‘vigorously pro-environment and antinuclear’. That never changed. Until his death last week, that was a core of his philosophy; and to this day it is part of the Democrat philosophy. There was the belief in free education. There were the Democrat amendments to Medicare and our views on the provision of publicly available and funded health care. And there was the antiprivatisation stance.

These are not middle-of-the-road concepts, but they were embodied by Don just as, on the other side of the ledger, for lack of a better expression, there was his opposition to the Australia Card. Don debated what he saw as the looming potential for a national identity card—the so-called smart card that the government is introducing. He railed against that. He kept telling me, ‘You have to run a campaign against this potentially invasive card.’ And, of course, we have already heard Don’s views on censorship.

As Greg Chipp, Don’s son, pointed out on Saturday at the funeral, one of Don’s last political acts was to sign a petition opposing the incarceration and detention of David Hicks in Guantanamo Bay for almost the last five years; I think it was a petition that I did with Amnesty. Again, that shows Don’s love and respect for the rule of law. That is perhaps an issue that would refer to Don’s small ‘l’ liberal principles and, certainly, to international humanitarian law, for which he had much time.

Don was never able to persuade enough people to have government within the party’s grasp but, arguably, he was after hearts and minds, not government. He wanted the very special voice of thousands of Australians, who care more about ordinary people’s lives than ideology and factions, to be heard. No-one can argue that he failed in that respect. Don had the satisfaction of seeing his small party do big things—of seeing Democrat senators emerge as fine legislators. I know that he was proud of and not disillusioned with, no matter what media reports might say, our work. Up until his death he was proud of our work. He was proud of our work in ameliorating unjust and harsh legislation over nearly 30 years now. He was proud of the fact that people in their thousands turned to the Australian Democrats for help and for policy that reflected his concern and his compassion.

I think Don was philosophical and unbowed by the special problems that afflict small parties, such as the personality differences that would usually be controlled in larger, more dogmatic parties, but which can cause serious difficulties in tiny parliamentary groups. He knew that no such party is immune from those problems, and he hoped that his wisdom would guide the Democrats through them; indeed, many times it did.

Through those times, Don was certainly always there for me, as he was at the times when I thought perhaps it was most politically difficult for me. I recall that was the case during the GST vote and my decision to cross the floor. In the midst of the negative media maelstrom Don was palpably excited by it all. To him, this was the living embodiment of everything he had been talking about in terms of his support for, and the establishment of, a conscience vote provision in the Australian Democrats. As he said in his national conference speech this year, the party was to ‘hate nobody and to allow its elected members to vote at all times in accordance with their conscience or what they perceive to be the best wishes of their electorate’.

I thank Don for his support during other times, difficult times, and for his support before, during and after my leadership. He came to understand how intractable some of those issues and differences were, and supported my decision to leave the leadership, just as he understood—if not accepted—in recent times my reasons for not resuming or attempting to return to the leadership.

But I have mostly fun memories of Don Chipp, as I am sure many people here do. There are stories people would have heard; I mentioned some at the funeral. There were birthdays—my 30th and seeing Don boogieing on down. There was Don’s 80th—he was not quite boogieing at that stage, but he was certainly in fine form. There was meeting Conrad. There was putting up with Ian’s politics. There was singing along to Robbie Williams DVDs. I tell you, Don was often in fine form and was always one to appreciate the skills of a fellow performer. He loved music, and Robbie Williams was one of his latest interests. There was the Constitutional Convention in 1998. I acknowledge former senator Karin Sowada, who I spoke to not only at the funeral but also last week after news of Don’s death. Karin was reminding me of a photograph that was taken of the two of us at that convention, with Don in the middle and the two of us kissing him—we are trying to scoop up all copies of that photo, by the way! It was typical Don: he was a bit of a larrikin and liked a kiss with the girls.

One of my favourite and most honoured moments was the 25th anniversary dinner held for the founders of the party on 9 May 2002. What a great honour that was. As I said at the funeral, one of my favourite campaign stories was about the time he came to Adelaide, to the seat of Boothby, on the last full day of the 2002 election campaign, and he was campaigning with me in Marion shopping centre. It was very exciting for Marion shopping centre. It did not know what had hit it. There was this posse of Democrats led by Don and me, and people were just swarming around. People love this man. They would come up and say, ‘How are you going?’ ‘Keep the bastards honest,’ and ‘Come back to politics.’ They would ask him questions and he would throw out answers, preaching but all the time hugging and kissing. It was an interesting campaign tactic but nonetheless it worked; we got 19 per cent in that electorate. But, as I said on Saturday, it was almost like a campaign brilliance combined with elements of a Benny Hill skit. That was Don. People loved him, and he loved life. He did not take things too seriously, but he took the things that mattered seriously. He did not take himself seriously, but the policies and the principles that mattered were most important to him.

The theme on Saturday was very much about love and family. He was an idealist, and he was a lover of peace and kindness. He held the flame high for social justice and humanity. He would never have proclaimed war—he hated war. Even if he were the most powerful man in the nation he would not have proclaimed war. He would have always found a better way, and that way would not have involved the suffering of the weakest.

To be called an honorary daughter and to be loved like one was an incredible honour. As Leader of the Democrats I was really proud to have helped lobby this government to establish the Don Chipp Foundation so that Don’s work can, in a policy sense, live on—of course, there is no doubt about that. I thank the people involved in establishing the Don Chipp Foundation, because I think it is really important as a think tank now that we can continue work on the policy and principle issues that Don was committed to.

There are those who with indecent haste are seeing Don’s death as a sign that his party is dead too. I think it would serve this nation better if they were to look at what Don Chipp’s party has meant to many, many thousands of Australians since he founded it. It would be smarter of them if they paused to think what the Senate is like today without the Democrats in the balance of power. It is an emasculated house, a rubber stamp for the government’s ideological excesses. They might actually see Don’s achievement as a significant force for the better in politics, as it has been and as it may be again.

As I said on Saturday—and I want to put the full quote on the record—the pain of death is the pain of loss. But can we really believe that we have lost Don Chipp? Whatever the fate of his Democrats, I think there will be a little bit of Don in every new party formed to oppose those with overweening power and too little concern for ordinary people. That must be a comfort to his family, and it is a comfort to us all. Don, we are going to miss you greatly. I offer my condolences, of course, to the beautiful Idun, to Monica as well, to his children Juliet, Laura, Debbie, Melissa, John and Greg and of course their grandchildren.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to offer my condolences to the family of the late Don Chipp. I did not know Don Chipp, so my comments relate to his contribution as a public figure in Australian political life. My first real awareness of Don Chipp was through the campaign to save the Franklin River in south-west Tasmania. His name will always be associated with that enormous contribution to conservation in Australia and to world heritage, because in 1981 it was Senator Don Chipp who initiated a Senate inquiry into the natural values of south-west Tasmania to Australia and the world and federal responsibility in assisting Tasmania to preserve its wilderness areas of national and international importance. He also drew up a private member’s bill which was later taken over by the Hawke government. His contribution to the saving of the Franklin River is outstanding and was enlightened for its time—and I want to put that on the record. As that river flows free to the sea, as Senator Stott Despoja has just said, there is a little bit of Don in that fantastic ecosystem.

I also want to note in relation to Don Chipp that, having had many years in the parliament and having been involved in party politics, he was very critical of and opposed to the rigidity of party politics. When asked in an interview in 1983 about whether, because of his policies on the environment and his humanitarian policies, he might have sat more comfortably in the Labor party, he said:

... I couldn’t hack having to kowtow to a policy established by a Federal executive—a policy which demands blind allegiance or expulsion if you buck it or cross the floor to vote. I’d rather go out and dig a good, honest hole because that is an anathema to everything I believe. Let me give you an example. In May 1977, after I’d resigned from the Liberal Party, I moved as an independent that there be a moratorium on all uranium mining. It almost lapsed for want of a seconder, but Jim Cairns mumbled something and the Speaker accepted that as seconding my motion. He was almost expelled from the ALP for that mumble because, at that point, he was going against his party policy. We had a vote and every member of both the Liberal and Labor parties voted against me.

It is interesting that back in 1977 he recognised the problems with uranium mining and then, when he could, after he had resigned from the Liberal Party and was an independent, moved on that. He went on to say:

Four months later, every member of the Labor Party voted for an almost identical motion. We’re not talking about the price of butter or some penny-ante thing here—we are talking about the future of the human race.

He did have a conceptual framework that went beyond elections. He did have a commitment to a vision for the future which was an expansive vision, one about humanitarianism and liberalism. The party that he formed, the Democrats, was really born out of his strong commitment to small ‘l’ liberalism. That was apparent back in his years in the Liberal Party when, as a minister, he adopted what was quite a radical approach to censorship at that time. He said himself that his approach to censorship ‘began from the fundamental premise that censorship is an evil thing’. He went on to say:

But I haven’t any doubt at this stage that an overwhelming majority of Australians want it in some form. So I, as the hapless Minister, have to administer a necessary evil.

However, we should note that his policy in opposing the narrow strictures of the day and speaking about the need for embracing ideas—all ideas—and opening society was something that we can be grateful for because it set a legacy in place that we can all benefit from in the political process.

I want to also note Don Chipp’s contribution in forming the Democrats. When he was disaffected with Liberal politics, went into his period as an independent and met up with other people—the Australia Party and others who had ideas about a small ‘l’ liberal party, if you like, with a commitment to the environment and social justice—he established the Democrats. He said at the time:

The three tenets I introduced when forming the Democrats were honesty, tolerance and compassion. Everybody thought that it was very funny to try and introduce one of those, let alone three. After my 17 years in the House, it was clear that dishonesty, intolerance and a total lack of compassion had been integral features of politics for many years. I’d been there and clearly it was not the system to cure Australia of its ills. Instead of confrontation and points scoring, why not introduce tolerance and honesty, to, say, industrial relations? Surely it would open up a whole vista of new possibilities.

That is what he was trying to do when he established the Democrats. It is a view that he brought to balance-of-power politics in the Senate—that attempt to ‘open up a whole vista of new possibilities’ in the way that people relate to one another and achieve outcomes through legislation. At that time he said:

But it all boils down to a question of what Australians want of their politicians. I’ll tell you what you want: you don’t want anything because you regard them as sons of bitches interested only in either feathering their own nests or self-aggrandisement. I believe that until we get back to the basic concepts of understanding what the problems facing mankind are, and how best we can solve them, then we may as well go through the motions of me drawing my parliamentary salary, making a few speeches and not really giving a stuff about anything.

That really demonstrates the passion that Don Chipp had for a better society. It demonstrates that he wanted to get into politics and stay in politics because he had a conviction about the way Australia ought to be. He tried very hard to bring those tenets of honesty, tolerance and compassion and a different way of doing things to political life in Australia, and to the Senate in particular.

In recent years I was saddened when Don Chipp was asked about his pledge to keep the bastards honest and he asked if he had got his promise to keep the bastards honest wrong by oversimplifying the problem and concentrating on the politicians. He went on to say that the real bastards:

... were the millions who reacted to a problem with another beer and a hateful ‘She’ll be right, mate’; the shareholders who supported uranium mining because of the profits; the bankers who welcomed foreign takeovers because they were good for profits; the unions who encouraged forest destruction because it pleased their members; lawyers who opposed simplifying workers’ compensation because that would threaten their holiday homes.

These are the real bastards, and they are represented in Canberra with sickening fidelity by members of the Liberal, National and Labor parties ...

That is what he wrote after quitting politics. As the journalist Don Woolford noted: ‘That’s vintage Chipp.’

In concluding, I would like to acknowledge that, in his 81-year life, Don Chipp’s contribution was enormous. He was a great athlete, as has been noted. He played AFL football; he ran in the Stawell Gift; he was very significant in helping Melbourne get ready for the 1956 Olympics. His language was always coloured by sporting imagery. He talked cricket a good deal of the time. When you read his speeches, you see that he talks in images of cricket. In fact, when he lost his ministry, he used a reference to having always played with a straight bat and said that he would accept the decision.

One of Don Chipp’s strengths was to also admit when he had got something wrong. He did that in relation to the Vietnam War. He had served in the RAAF and he had supported the second Voyager inquiry. He originally supported the Vietnam War. Later he regretted that decision and he put in train a real effort to address the issue of landmines in Vietnam and Cambodia. He and Idun made a documentary about the devastation that was caused. He tried not only to point out where the thinking had been wrong but also to draw attention to what had occurred and increase public awareness and public support for overcoming the use of landmines. That is a great tribute to the man and his way of thinking.

In conclusion, Australia has lost one of its great political characters. It has lost a person who was passionate about issues and causes. But his legacy lives on because he set a standard for Australian politicians by making it his hallmark to say that politics is not there just to take the pay cheque; politics is there to make a difference. And he moved on in making a difference in all sorts of ways throughout his life, right until the end.

I pay tribute to that and to his contribution to Australian politics, his work in the Liberal Party, and later the Democrats, and his community service. There are so many aspects of that of which I was unaware. For example, I was not aware that he was one of the first people to start public awareness and fundraising for cancer causes in Australia, years before people really understood the severity of the problem. Again, I offer my condolences on behalf of the Greens to his family and pay tribute to his great contribution to Australian life.

Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to support the motion of condolence for Donald Leslie Chipp. I attended the state funeral in Melbourne on Saturday. I have been asked by several people since: was it a sad occasion? Of course, these occasions are always sad for close family and friends but, for the rest of the attendees there, I felt it was a celebration. It was a celebration of a life lived absolutely to the full, full of vigour, ideas and expression all the way through to his very deathbed.

I was quite startled by the range and variety of the people there. People were genuinely pleased that such a man had graced Australian public life and had made the contribution he did. The ceremony was typically Chipp, as far as I could see. It began with rock-and-roll, ended with jazz and in the middle was high-flown choral singing. It had profanity, laughter and tears. It had strong religious observance, idealism and great expressions of principle coupled with earthy recollections and, of course, warm and memorable family remarks and discussion. I ended up coming away feeling that I was glad I had participated in a farewell that was as much a wake, in the old-fashioned celebratory sense of a wake, as a funeral service and memorial.

Don Chipp was one of 26 senators that the Democrats have provided to this chamber over 29 years. He served as a Democrat senator from 1 July 1978 until he resigned on 18 August 1986 when he retired and did not stand again. He retired at the age of 61, which is actually the same age I will be when I retire from this Senate in 2008, so I will share that date with him. He served as a Democrat senator for eight years and two months. Ten Democrat senators have served for longer than that. He was certainly the person who put the stamp of his style on the Democrat party and its contributions to the life, decisions and vitality of the Senate as a chamber as well as, of course, to the broader political community. Right from the start, he presided over an extremely vigorous number of Democrat senators. I am sometimes surprised at the lack of a sense of history by journalists writing about the modern Democrats as if they are somehow different to the Democrats in those days, because there were vigorous disagreements sometimes, which even spawned resignations, sitting as Independents and disagreements that were as strong as that.

For my own part I regret having only known Don Chipp in the last 11 years of his extraordinary 81 years, but that is probably true of nearly every Democrat, including those with him right from the beginning. He was 54, I think, when he presided over the start of the Democrats and most people would have known him as an older man. It is a reminder to all of us, some of whom are a lot younger than that now, of what sort of contribution you can make as an individual in your older years. It is not the time to back off. You can make your contribution in many ways and I think in that sense it was a celebration of a life that was against ageism, against the concept that you retire and do not continue to make a contribution. I think that is a great characteristic of his.

In the way of politics, I saw him more often in company than in private. Living as I do in Western Australia, I saw him seldom, so I do not presume to have been close. I think all sorts of people will claim a closeness that is not merited and will seek to catch onto his coat-tails, but it is a very human thing when somebody of great character has passed on to wish to have something of them attach to you. I was an admirer. I claim him as an inspiration and an example. His greatest public characteristics were an enduring and consistent provocative advocacy and the rare ability to catch and hold attention. His private conversations with me were notable for an inquisitive and interested demeanour, a natural courtesy and respect for my argument. I think that, of all the memories I have of him, apart from his great forthrightness, the strongest are of his courtesy and respect. There is much to be said for that style.

I think Don Chipp deserves his national reputation and he deserves his place among Australia’s political greats. When history comes to be written of the last half of the last century, I think he will loom as large in that political pantheon as do people we respect and look back on in the first half of that century. He deserves to be up there, and you could tell that that was the view of many who attended his funeral. I want to particularly note commentary—I just picked them out—from such political luminaries and people to be admired for their national contribution as Andrew Peacock and Paul Keating. The remarks they made were quite extraordinary and complimentary.

Much has been said about our party being a party established on the basis of honesty, tolerance and compassion. It is true that that is a mark of the principles and virtues we attach ourselves to but, above all things, Don Chipp understood the world and he recognised that Democrats were as likely to be as dishonest to and intolerant of each other as were any other members of any other parties. I do not think people should have the view that Don Chipp’s relationship with the Democrats was not an extremely human interaction. One thing he did hang onto and fiercely advocated all his life, and it is something I particularly hold dear, was the right to a conscience vote. That is at the very core of the Democrats’ tradition, constitution and aspirations but, once again, you find amongst Democrat members that, when a parliamentarian does exercise their conscience and speaks their own mind, they are as likely to be assailed by certain members and participants in the party as probably anyone else who exercises their conscience in any other party. I think he continually emphasised that point because he was aware that it needed to be defended within the Democrats as much as within the political community as a whole. If there is anything that I hang onto from Don Chipp, apart from many small ‘l’ liberal beliefs, it is that right to a conscience vote.

With respect to that, in much of the commentary that has been seen in the newspapers, I am amazed how commentators sometimes behave as soldiers on a killing field—they will not stop firing until you have several bullets in your body. There has been some delight taken in being participants in the present troubles of the Democrats. I am one of those who happen to believe that the small ‘l’ liberal philosophy that underpins the Democrats is alive and well in Australia and that there is no reason why the party cannot resuscitate itself. The journalists concerned have picked on the GST agreement as a moment of great internal savagery in the Democrats. One of the strong memories I have of Don Chipp is him turning up in Canberra to very strongly support the senators and the leader who had negotiated that agreement. He backed to the full the efforts and the considerations given by Senators Lees, Murray, Woodley, Allison, Ridgeway, Greig and Bourne. Having backed us to the full for what we had done, he in turn backed to the full Senators Bartlett and Stott Despoja, who had opposed that agreement, which was exactly how it should be. Don Chipp not only lived the credo of tolerance and respect for a conscience vote but also he supported it and he supported Senators Bartlett and Stott Despoja strongly in their right to oppose the majority of the party room, as he supported the majority of the party room in the efforts they carried out.

I am one of four Democrats senators who have come from the great state of Western Australia. One of those four senators was former Senator Jack Evans. Jack is typical of many Democrats, perhaps typical of many senators, in that he stood four times for office and was successful only once. It is not easy to get into this place from any minor party or as an Independent. I am surrounded by some people who have had that battle on their hands. It is also not easy either, of course, if you are No. 3 or No. 4 on the major party tickets. Jack was a senator with Don Chipp in his party room from 5 March 1983 to 30 June 1985 and I thought it would be a fitting tribute to Don Chipp for me to read what I received from Jack, because I asked Jack to write his own words as a contribution to this condolence motion.

So, with the leave of the chamber, I will read what Jack wrote and quote it without change. He wrote:

With a treasure chest of life’s lessons, Don decided to enter politics with many of the ideals shared by the people who have inhabited our parliament over the past century.

A dedicated humanitarian, with an empathy for the average Aussie, he recognised that to achieve many of his goals he would have to compromise some of these ideals initially. His first lesson in politics!

He advanced within the Liberal Party and had an illustrious career mapped out for him—provided he was willing to toe the party line.

Then came the crunch!

Born of the frustration experienced by most politicians when party policies clashed with the ideals one brought into the parliament, this clash between team allegiance and conscience gnawed away at his conscience.

The only way forward was to resign—and maybe start again. The opportunity for a fresh start came when a group of like minded people invited him to form a new, different kind of political party.

One that allowed conscience votes, welcomed contrary opinions and sought solutions that disadvantaged as few as possible in the least harmful way.

He agreed to test the response from Australians all over the country as he promulgated this kind of political party.

The response was overwhelming as it took Don and the party founders along in a tide of support rarely seen for a new concept in politics.

Idealists like Don met and set out a path for a future Australian party which gave all its members an equal say in determining its policies and its office bearers and whose members all could vote in secret ballots to preselect their parliamentary representatives. Even the name of the new party was chosen by the members in a secret postal ballot.

Thousands joined this new party and voted on its new constitution and elected Democrat candidates for most seats for the 1977 federal election.

History recalls that Senators Don Chipp and Colin Mason were elected for a six year term and Senate candidates in other states received huge support but just missed out on a seat.

When Janine Haines joined this team in the Senate the trio started to make their presence felt in the parliament.

Other campaigns such as rafting the rapids of the Franklin River to prevent it being dammed won the support of many environmentalists and demonstrated to the major political parties that the support for the Democrats was substantial and that theirs was a voice to be heard in the parliament. At the next federal election the Democrats added two more senators to their team and at the same time gained the balance of power in the federal parliament.

The responsible use of this balance of power was the next big challenge and this was met with fear by the government and approbation by the opposition.

But neither major party was to have their way with this group of honest, trustworthy political lightweights.

Much of the legislation of that time was enacted following discussion in the Democrats party room at which all senators and key staff could have input and the responsible senator took a mandate into the negotiations with the responsible minister and the shadow minister.

Many Bills were modified to accord with Democrats policies following these negotiations and most agreed that the outcomes benefited the electors.

Don set a pattern which was to be followed by succeeding Democrats senators and MLCs in state and territory parliaments for years to come.

In the federal parliament Don had few peers when it came to political strategies and tactics.

His gut feel for the electorate and his knowledge of parliamentary procedures enabled him and his team to persuade their colleagues from one major party or the other to accept the Democrats point of view.

It became common knowledge within the opposition party of the day that if the member or Senator could not get their way within their own caucus that an alternative method may be to persuade the Democrats to move an amendment which reflected their view.

With his vast parliamentary experience Don quickly became a mentor to his many colleagues at federal and state levels. This was reflected in succeeding federal parliaments and in state and territory parliaments.

Parliamentarians from across the nation benefited from his wise advice and he developed leaders to carry the mantle after his departure.

Senators Janine Haines and Michael Macklin were major beneficiaries of this guidance when they became leaders of the party but many other successive leaders were very happy to follow the inspirational leadership he gave throughout his life. Many of Don’s legacies will remain, whether the Democrats are there to implement them or some other party or group carries the balance of power.

Probably the most significant is the right of a parliamentarian to have a conscience vote without the fear of losing preselection or of bringing opprobrium on themselves.

This will restore a greater degree of integrity to the parliaments. The Democrats had the safeguard which is lacking with ‘independent’ members and Senators and that is that the conscience voter must first disclose their voting intention to their colleagues and must then address the parliament, giving first the party ‘line’, followed by their own reasons for voting the way they intend.

Next would be the right of the Democrats parliamentarians to accept less than 100% of their demands to enable a satisfactory piece of legislation to be passed rather than to be blockers of all Bills with which they had some disagreement and could not win all their amendments.

They believed that the promise to never block supply was integral to the fundamental right of an elected government to govern.

This promise came out of the real and potential chaos which followed the sacking of the Whitlam government when its supply was threatened by the opposition of the day. Other legacies came from members and the parties which formed the Democrats.

The formulation of policies came from the Australia Party via Geoffrey and Lois Loftus Hills who established the secret postal ballot to follow adequate written discussion of all policies. Postal ballots enabled members throughout this vast continent to have their say having been given the opportunity to in-put at the deliberation stage via the National Journal.

This, together with secret postal ballots for parliamentary preselections ensured member control of the vital votes for influence within the party.

Vale Don Chipp.

Leader, inspiration to many and a true democrat.

That is from former senator Jack Evans.

I will conclude, as I should, by saying that I honour former senator Don Chipp’s memory. I honour his life and celebrate his commitment and his place on the Australian public life stage. And I wish, of course, to extend my sympathies, and those of my wife and my office, to Idun, to Don Chipp’s six children and to all their families, close relatives and friends.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Family First also supports this condolence motion. It was such a privilege and pleasure to know Don Chipp, a bloke I think most Australians had the utmost respect for. He was like no other. His life was bigger than anyone’s; his heart was bigger than Phar Lap’s. He was a man who instinctively knew how to share what most people thought and felt. Don Chipp had the guts to stand up and say it how it was, in a way that all of us could relate to.

I will forever cherish the day my wife, Sue, and I had lunch with Don during the 2004 campaign. If it were not for that lunch, I doubt that I would be a senator today. We all know there is no such thing as a free lunch, but I know there is such a thing as a life-changing lunch, and I owe a lot to Don. I had allowed the worries of today to divert me from spending some time with Don, and I regret that sincerely. He will be missed, as I think all of us would say around here, and I think most Australians would say the same thing. My sincere condolences to Don’s wife, Idun, and to his family.

Question agreed to, honourable senators standing in their places.